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From Vice President Education desk The Ups and Downs of Capgemini Toastmasters Club If there was no downs for an human, then *''We would had not discovered that the Earth is round '' '' '' *''We would had not discovered light '' '' '' *''We would had not discovered walking '' '' '' *''We would had not constructed PISA'' Now think about the mindset of people who did many blunders before creating a wonder. Our "Capgemini toastmasters" club started in 9th January 2008 with lot of enthusiastic employees. I am sure most of them joined as they recognized that toastmasters is the right forum to improve their communication, public speaking, and leadership skills. Although it was great to see 40 toastmasters in the club roll, the people turned to the meeting was always around 20. As everyone of us were new and unable to find a well laid path of our journey, it was bit tough in the beginning to find motivation to be consistent. However there was no time to think about retracting from our belief as we were guarded and lead by well versed and motivating mentor Mr. Robert and the first president of our club, a wonderful and fantabulous Ms. Vidhi Gureja who was previously Vice President of Infosys Toastmasters Club. Most of us might aware of our club's grand installation ceremony happened during June 2008 and recognized and reached across Capgemini Bangalore. However soon after the installation due to undiscovered reason we couldn't operate for next 4 months and our club strength drastically dropped below 15 as no one was renewing their membership for next 6 months. I guess it could be because of world economic impact and recession. There was no meetings during the period July 2008 to October 2008 and no clue of our slippage and may be we should identify and write a book on "Capgemini Toastmasters book of secrets" to reveal the fact and to display it as learning. “The winner is the one who knows when to drop out in order to give a great mighty show” It was true in our case and this period was very crucial where our club started realizing their inner potential and many thanks to our Vice President Public Relations, competent toastmaster, and a very good natural speaker Mr. Rajesh who reinstated our club functioning once again from last November 2008 by putting lot of efforts. At this time I should also appreciate our club President and Secretary who had never hesitated to contribute both financially and physically as we delayed to raise enough funds for our club and for their patronage to Rajesh in giving life to our club. The club success being measured against the achievement of each member (Refer Progress Report) against our club success plan (Refer CSP) and growth in the membership, every other meeting hone existing members and seeding a belief in at least 5 guests that one day "I could also become a better public speaker, communicator, and leader" which on average increases our strength by 4 in a month. I am pleased to recognize each and every member's contribution towards the growth of our club and making progress towards our defined goals. "Winners are not only just who come first, they are the one who could withstand a bit beyond where others stop." I take this opportunity to thank 1. Sales Vice President 2. Santhosh Bargawa 3. Capgemini Bangalore center head and Vice President Mr. Rama Rao for allocating time to give a guest speech even in their tight schedule. A very special thanks to Subramani Elumalai for being a great motivator in the background and he who believes in lifting people upward without expecting much popularity. After reading the above lines, by now everyone would get a question "What is toastmasters?" Toastmasters is a non profit organization founded in 1924 by Ralph C Smedley in the basement of Santa Ana, California, USA. Later it become Toastmasters international when toastmasters club got a request from Canada to open their own club following toastmasters protocol. The nonprofit organization now has nearly 235,000 members in 11,700 clubs in 92 countries, offering a proven – and enjoyable! – way to practice and hone communication, public speaking, and leadership skills. Ralph C Smedley has crafted a foolproof method and manuals to practice communication and leadership effectively and efficiently. Each manual has 10 project and on completion a manual qualifies an award from Toastmasters International and adds points to the club to be recognized in the international community. Every toastmaster should consciously follow the toastmaster's promise. Manuals (What to achieve) Every block in Orange color is a manual and each manual consists of 10 projects. Communicator and leadership can be done in parallel however when considered alone it has to follow the order as shown below.Method (How to achieve) Any newly formed club will have a mentor assigned who will guide and make the club capable of functioning on it own within 6 months. The committee members are elected by the members by voting and the tenure would be 6 / 12 months as decided by the club and it is 12 months period for our club. The committee members for our current tenure are Committee Members Immediate Past President: Vidhi Gureja (Vidhi.gureja@capgemini.com) '' ''President : To be elected '' ''Vice President Education: Ranjith Subramanian (ranjith.subramanian@capgemini.com) '' ''Vice President Public Relations: Rahesh Nair (rajesh.r.nair@capgemini.com) '' ''Vice President Membership: To be elected '' ''Secretary: AS PadmaKumar (padmakumar.nair@capgemini.com) '' ''Treasurer: Jegathpathy (jegathpathy.subramanian-thangathurai@capgemini.com) '' ''Seargent At Arms: Shubha Rajamoorthy (shubha.rajamurthy@capgemini.com) Briefly ''' President will overlook the progress of club and motivate members VP Education holds the whole responsibility to plan, organize, and improve the quality of meetings along with an initiative to motivate and help members to take their projects defined in manuals VP PR will create publicity to the club internal to organization and external across the globe VP Membership takes care of membership management activities Secretary takes care of logistics and keep note of every meeting progress Treasurer will handle club funds and due renewals SAA to ensure meeting specific logistics and time management '''We meet fortnightly on a Thursday from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM. Typically in a meeting, 3 sections (1. Prepared Speech, 2. Table topics, and 3. Evaluation) and two roles President and SAA which are fixed to committee members mostly and 6 other roles Master of Ceremonies (Toastmaster of the day), Table Topic Master, Grammarian, Ah Counter, Timer, Evaluator played by any club member. Meetings are always be planned with a "theme of the day" (For example: Be my Valentine, When you believe it, you see it) and it provides the base for everyone to talk around the theme and General Evaluator of the day. Section 1: Prepared Speech Speeches are given by the speakers (any member) who booked the slot for that day, on any topic according to the guidelines defined in the toastmasters international manuals. Basically each project has it own objectives and speaker is expected to incorporate in their speech. Normally the time given would be around 5-8 minutes. Section 2: Table Topics This is the most interesting and fun filled section of toastmasters. Table topic master randomly picks up club members and ask them to speak on any topic for 1-2 minutes which he has already prepared. Table topic master could design this section based on his creativity and ideas. This section is open for guests who would love to volunteer. Section 3: Evaluation This is the most significant and facilitative section where fellow toastmasters gives constructive feedback and areas to improve for every prepared speakers along with whether the speaker could take up next project or should repeat the project once again. SAA: Start the meeting with welcoming note to everyone '' ''President: Give a motivational speech on the theme of the day '' ''MC: chair person of the meeting '' ''Table Topic master: Design and conduct the table topics lively and creatively by grasping everyone's attention and involvement in the meeting '' ''Grammarian: Provide "Word of the day" along with meaning and usage which is rarely used to enable role takers and speakers to use it in their speech. Identify the good and may not good usage of language and give a report during evaluation section without highlighting the member names. '' ''Ah Counter: Note down the count of Ahs, short pauses, long pauses, and repetitive clutch words of every speaker and give a report during general evaluation. '' ''Timer : Take a note of each speaker's time and give a report during evaluation section To know more... Toastmasters International: http://www.toastmasters.org/ Capgemini Toastmasters Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/capgemini_blr_toastmasters/ Capgemini Toastmasters website: http://cgtoastmasters.com/ or contact any of the committee members. In our life, though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending. ''' '''The future depends on what we do in the present. - Mahatma Gandhi All Capgeminians are welcome... VP Education Ranjith... Category:Capgemini Toastmasters Introduction